CLEVELAND, Ohio - Parts of Cleveland's old Aviation High School still look like a school.

Chalkboards are still mounted on the walls of some classrooms, 21 years after the school at Burke Lakefront Airport closed. The principal's office is empty, but the big glass windows that look out onto the hallways are still intact. And there are still placards with school weightlifting and boys and girls track records on display.

It's an obvious solution to finding a long-term home for the new school, which would expand on the airplane maintenance and electrical programs the old school offered. The new school would have some vocational training in operating, fixing and navigating ships and planes, while also using the aviation and maritime setting to teach college preparatory classes.

"When I started this, I wanted to re-open Aviation High School," said Drew Ferguson, president of PHASTAR, the non-profit behind creating the school.

Ferguson said that locating the school at an airport with access to Lake Erie, which would be available a few hundred feet east of the old school, would serve the school's maritime and aviation aims alike.

PHASTAR, made up mainly of people working at local airports or in air industries, hopes the school will provide needed workers for well-paid jobs in both fields. The school also fits into the school district's goal of creating different styles of schools in different professional settings to energize students and expose them to careers.

"We'd like the kids to be able to walk out the door and touch the water," Ferguson said. "That's an absolutely perfect spot."

It's a desire echoed by the heads of a maritime high school in Toledo and aviation high school in Detroit that The Plain Dealer visited last week. Having immediate access to runways, water, planes and boats lets students experience much more than in a disconnected classroom, they said.

Building is in disrepair

But there are also complications, including the condition of the building, the needs of the airport and ever-changing development plans for the area. For now, while the school searches for a permanent home, it will start teaching classes a few blocks away at E. 13th Street and Lakeside Avenue.

Just as the school's name - "General Benjamin O. Davis Aviation High School" - is missing a few letters on the facade facing drivers on Interstate 90, some parts of the building are deteriorating.

It has been mostly abandoned since the school district closed it in 1996 and it became city property. In the years since, it has served as a homeless shelter and a detention site after a truancy sweep in the 1990s or after large-scale arrests.

No one has invested in any improvements while the city has debated proposals to move the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum there from University Circle, to lease the building to technology or aircraft maintenance companies or to close Burke altogether and develop the land.

Beyond years of dust and scattered debris - like old sinks and toilets, or mattresses from the site's homeless shelter days - other parts of the building need serious work. There's a leaking roof, for example. There's damage from a water main break. And the old control tower where students once trained as air traffic controllers has stairs too dangerous to climb.

There are no handy estimates of what it would take to renovate the building for use as a school again. District CEO Eric Gordon said he has always been told that costs would be far too high, so re-using the building has never been an option.

Airport has plans for the school

The greatest block to re-using the school, however, may be the city's plans for it.

Airport Commissioner Khalid Bahhur said the city intends to convert the entire facility for airport use. A city plan from 2016 calls for spending more than $12.2 million to move the airport's maintenance, security and fire departments there from smaller buildings at the other end of the airport.

The airport even has plans for a devoted space for the animal control officer that keeps deer and coyotes off the runway.

"Our goal is to use everything that's here," Bahhur said, pointing down a hallway of empty classrooms. "The development that we're doing will take every inch of space that's there."

A good portion of the facility is already in active use.

The 100-foot by 120-foot hangar where students used to work on airplanes is filled with Cleveland Police helicopters, a police boat, and massive runway sweepers and plows. A smaller hangar has mowers for edging the runways, paving machines and an old decommissioned police plane.

And some old classrooms and shops are being used for vehicle repair, woodworking and storage of replacement runway lights.

Little has been done so far

But many of the investments the city will need to convert the building have not happened yet.

One wing of the facility will be converted into a home for the airport's fire department, with sleeping areas and a kitchen to handle their round-the-clock shifts. Room will also be carved out as a garage for fire trucks and space for firefighters to maintain their equipment.

But none of that work has started.

Nor has work to converting the building for vehicle maintenance. There's no maintenance garage in the facility yet, or even any visible tools, for working on trucks and support vehicles. On a Plain Dealer tour of the facility March 29, nobody was visible working in the building.

If the facility had to be used as a school again, Bahhur said, the biggest loss would be the hangar that has become his garage.

"I would have to replace this facility - a heated facility - that would house everything that's here," he said.

Ferguson said he hopes that if the old high school won't work, another similar site might be found.

"We're looking for something that offers the same access and opportunities the old high school had," he said. "Is that the only option? No."